A bit of frost last night (12/13 November) – it’s cut back the achocha that scrambles over the hedge. I picked the last of the fruits – here they are.

The last of the achochas, 2013

So we’ve been using them from the end of August until now – about 11 weeks. Why doesn’t everyone grow them?

It’s so dismal when the clocks go back (we were in Rome when it happened this year – and have come back to winter). Why not just leave it as ‘summer time’? I remember the experiment in the 1960s – we were in Northern Ireland then, but although it meant going to school in the dark it still meant you got home in the light most of the year.